He was somebody's son
by WalkingNorth
Summary: Sometimes a soul can wait for what seems like forever to get the one thing they desire. But for some, even then, it is too soon. A set of one shots.
1. He was somebody's son

Disclaimer: I don't own Hellsing

This is just a little idea that popped into my head the other day. It was really sad but I still had to write it down.

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He was somebody's son. 

I gently push away unruly strands of silken, raven hair and he stares up at me. "That's a foolish thought Master." I am tired, so tired. I am tired of being strong, tired of never being able to say how I feel, be true to who I am. Yes, I am strong and yes, I need to be in control. But that doesn't mean that I don't rely on people. That I don't need someone to be there for me sometimes, that I don't mourn for the loss of each of my men.

His hand reaches up to touch my cheek, his fingers cold against my skin, as they have always been. My monster, Alucard, grins up at me. His head lays in my lap, supported off the cold blood-covered stone floor. "It isn't right." I start, then scowl at him. He should not be inside my head, my thoughts have not been my own since I was very young but still, he should know better. "Do not think to presume that you understand everything Alucard." He chuckles softy and I cannot help but see how it strains him. "You are as transparent as the day I met you." I shake my head angrily and his grin widens. Only a little though. "No one should mourn a monster." I scowl at him, my servant, my… friend. "What makes you think I would mourn you creature?" His scarlet eyes are old and all knowing. All too easily he reminds me just how young I really am. "You mourn every soul that is lost under your command Master." His face softens, at least it softens as much as a psychotic killing machine can. "That's harsh Master." He coughs haltingly. "Or perhaps it isn't." His eyes stray to our surrounds and I feel fury rise within me. How could this happen? I never thought, I never realised. What a fool I am, still such a child. "I have killed men for saying lesser things about my Master." My gaze is drawn back to his face. Ever-present smirk pushed tightly into place. "You have killed men for saying lesser things about your hat Alucard." He chuckles, and I find myself wincing at the sound of shifting bone. "You are right of course." He pauses, suddenly serious. "Of course."

I didn't want this to happen. "I know." His eyes, so unsettling, are far away. How long has he been planning this? How long has he been waiting? "A long time Master." He is staring at me again. A part of me wants to reprimand him for intruding on my thoughts, for seeing what isn't his to see. "Why didn't you stop Alucard?" I know I should be angry, but I am only sad. When I saw what he was about to do, I commanded him with every fiber of my being. _"Stop." 'Stop.'_ I ordered him in every way I knew, but he didn't obey. "I gave you an order." I feel my voice break and know that the ancient vampire I now cradle like a child will not miss such a thing. He only smiles, the brilliant crimson orbs I have known almost all my life are dulling. "I do not have to follow your orders Integra." My eyes are drawn to his face at the sound of my name. "I never had to follow your orders." He focuses back on me and I see a weak, but familiar, manic grin slip across his features. "Did you really think that a spell cast so many generations ago would truly bind one such as I Master?" the mocking tone is the same as always and my eyes widen as I try to comprehend what he is telling me. His voice sounds in my head, the smooth baritone of my servant. 'I have always obeyed you of my own free will knight.' I feel my heart skip a beat. "Yes, I have been planning this for a very long time." In this moment I understand, I see what has happened. "You bastard Alucard." His grin is fading and his hand falls away from my cheek. I capture it in mine and hold it tightly. "You bastard, all this time. You were just using Hellsing, using us all." He smiles. How many years has he been waiting, planning, playing with us all? "You were the only ones Master. Hellsing… improved me. It was only common sense that you would be the ones to find the way to destroy me." I glower at him, fingers flying to the cross at my neck. "God help us."

_Pushing open the heavy door, a young Integra Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing creeps into the room of her servant. She creeps into the resting place of the vampire Alucard. For a long time she has been daring herself. It has become almost a test of wills. For so long she has been telling herself, 'If I can do it, if I can go down to his room, on my own, without Walter or any of the soldiers. Then I will be fit. He will know I am not afraid.' Stepping into the darkened room, she walks silently, on the feet of a terrified child, up to the dark wood coffin of her vampire. Silently, haltingly, she traces the inscription on the lid. "The bird of Hermes is my name. Eating my wings to make me tame." She whispers it quietly under her breath. Suddenly she remembers and glances at her watch. Swearing softly under her breath, she realises that she is almost out of time. "Half an hour each way of midday Miss Integra, that is the time the beast sleeps deepest." A token. She has to find a token to prove to herself she has been here. Glancing about the room, she is disappointed to see that it is so sparcely furnished. "A chair will not make an ideal token, far too obvious." she says softly. Her eyes fall upon the lid of the coffin and she knows. There lies the only place she will find something suitably small._

_With the strength that true curiosity brings, she pushes back the lid of her vampire's coffin. Rich, black silk rubs smoothly on the wood as she eases it back to reveal the ancient nosferatu, slumbering in his final resting place. Pushing her glasses higher on her nose, the young Hellsing's eyes wander over his sleeping form, looking for the perfect token, the perfect thing to prove her bravery. And there it is. In his sleep, his bow tie has shifted and beneath it she can see something she has never noticed before. A small silver cross is pinned beneath it. Fleetingly, she wonders why a vampire would carry such an object, and in silver no less. It must, even for one such as he, cause him constant pain, albeit muted by his clothes. With trembling fingers, she reaches into the coffin and unpins the cross. Like the child she is, she chooses it for its double meaning to her. She has found her token and in doing so, relieved her servant of a small pain. Carefully, so as not to accidentally prick him with the silver pin, she slips it from his clothing and with shaking hands she moves to shut the coffin. Before pulling back the lid, she does the last thing she must do to prove herself worthy, to prove herself strong enough to stand in her Father's stead. To prove to herself that she can make them all proud. She gazes upon the face of a sleeping monster._

My hand is toying with the silver cross at my throat and he watches me without a smile. "I never thought I would see the day when a Hellsing became a common thief." My eyes meet his, now back in the present. "I never thought I would see the day that you cried Alucard." He averts his eyes and I know I have crossed a boundary. I know that all those years ago I saw something I never should have. "Why did you let me keep it Alucard?" His eyes are drawn once again to the cross at my neck. 'Is it because you didn't know? Did you not recognise it?' Somehow I cannot see the trinket as a thing he would have spent a long time gazing at. For the first time though he does not seem to hear my mental questions and I realise that his strength is waning. "Why would I take back something that only caused me pain Master?" I shut my eyes as he speaks. The deep baritone I have known so long has a slight quiver in it, the merest tremble. "Alucard," Tears well on my lashes and I move to wipe them away. "Why?" He smiles, a ghostly expression that he is unable to sustain for long, his eyes clouding over. "I have done a great many things in my life Master and…" I hide my tears with the sleeve of my olive jacket. "Those tears Alucard. Was it the guilt? Is that why you…" "Do not presume to know me Integra," His words are cut off as he grinds his teeth together, the pain finally overcoming him. I feel a shudder pass through his body. "Don't you dare Alucard!" I feel panic rising in me. He is leaving me, he is… he cannot… "No!" The tears finally run freely down my face as I grip his limp shoulders tightly. "Alucard! Alucard! You wake up this instant, that's an order! Don't you dare… you wouldn't dare…" I cannot finish my sentence as I pull him close, my shoulders heaving. The quicksilver in his bloodstream has reached his heart, the sluggish beat having given me precious minutes to speak to him. "You bastard Alucard. You bastard. You can't leave me. You were supposed…" 'You were supposed to be the one constant in this world…'

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Fire burns in the bowels of themansion and a young vampire, just back from her first mission alone is drawn to it. "What in the bloody hell?" Seras Victoria approaches the blazing furnace that had been the Hellsing Weapons Research Laboratory when she left on her assigned task. Silhouetted against the flames, she can make out Sir Integra. Something nags at the young fledgling's mind, a hole that wasn't there when she woke that night. "Sir Integra? What happened here?" The knight does not turn to face the young vampire, her eyes fixed on the inferno, fingers wrapped tightly around the cross at her throat. "Officer Victoria, you are now Hellsing's head vampire hunter." Seras' eyes widen, the hole suddenly making sense. "Master Alucard!" she screams, throwing herself towards the burning chambers. Integra steps before her and the young midian stops short, unable to knock her Master's Master into the blaze. "Sir Integra?" Integra ignores the blood tears that stream down the draculina's face and, as she falls to her knees, face in her hands, Integra stares coldly down at her. "He made his own choices Seras, you cannot mourn for him when he has finally gained what he has desired for so long." She places a gloved hand on the girl's shaking shoulder. _"No one should mourn a monster."_ "Get up. There is work to do."

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Sorry if it is OOC, but I had to get it down on paper. Hope you enjoyed, please review WalkingNorth


	2. Of a monster

A tense silence reigns over the room. It is always like this when she is alone with her Master. Her hands work a tad more clumsily than usual as she cleans and prepares her Halconnen, wiping streaks of caked blood and chunks of unidentifiable gore from the weapon. On the table between them lie the new bullets Walter brought her. Hellsing's first workable quicksilver mix. The bullets glow eerily, daring Seras to touch them without the thick gloves that lie ready beside them.

She risks a glance at her Master. Tonight the mission went a little strangely. Oh, there was a force of ghouls, as is the usual when dealing with Freaks, but killing them, and their keepers, did not bring a smile to her sire's face. 'How strange.'

She expects him to scold her for her thoughts, berating her, even injuring her as he does anytime he is near. His presence in her room after the mission just adds to the peculiarity of the entire evening. The fact that he has been sitting across from her for an hour whilst she cleans her gun, without a word, without so much as a chuckle, verges on the bizarre.

She allows her eyes to travel to his face, hands working mechanically across the dull surface of her weapon, and she realises that he is, well, deep in thought. His crimson eyes are fixed intently on the bullets on the table; there is a darkness in them that sends a shiver down her spine. Seras feels a twinge inside her and wonders suddenly, for the first time. Is the darkness really him, or is it something that he is drowning inside of?

Even now, it would seem, that her thoughts are not worth his time. The look in his eyes though; she cannot tear her gaze away. She has seen it before in battle-jaded soldiers, the time when they have seen so much, so much it would seem and no more. The look they get right before they…

His white-gloved hand comes slowly upwards, slender fingers, covered only by slight silk, reach for one of the bullets, like a puppet to a hypnotist he reaches for oblivion. "Master?" His hand pauses, hovering over the little silver pill, silk reflecting its venomous light. His eyes do not leave the bullet. "Yes Police Girl." His baritone is tired, weary of the world, or perhaps, himself.

"Master… I don't think…" His eyes flash up to hers and anger mars his handsome features. "You don't think what Police Girl?" Seras cowers before his anger and his eyes narrow as he scans her mind. A grin splits his jaw. "Am I not a monster Police Girl?" The malice in his tone clashes with the smirk on his face sending shivers down her back. "Surely the world would gladly be rid of one more monster?" Seras feels tears prick her eyes at his words. "But Master, I don't want…" He stands suddenly, rage written all over his features. "You don't want what Police Girl? You don't want to be here? You don't want to drink your blood? You don't want to kill, you don't want to die, you don't want to be the only one?" His voice storms in her sensitive ears. Seras is unable to cower back in her chair any more. A grin plays across his facade. "A creature that wants a monster to live," He toys with the words, rolling them off his tongue as if he is reaching an amazing conclusion, "surely that makes you as much a monster as I?" Seras shakes her head and his chuckle cuts through the cold air. "Or perhaps it is something else Police Girl? Perhaps it is something you do want?" His smirk holds a leering quality as he stands and moves to her side. He takes the arms of her wooden chair and swings her around to face him, trapping her between his limbs, he stands between her knees, leaning far closer than the norm. "Perhaps it is something you long for Police Girl?" He leans forward to inhale her scent, his eyes fixed on the mark of her sire.

Seras is frozen, her body rigid against his entrapment. He lifts a hand to caress her collarbone. "How fragile humanity is." His voice holds a void of longing. "The touch of a monster will always shatter it." She makes a small sound as his fingertips dip into the hollow of her neck. "Is that what you want Seras? Do you want my body Seras? Surely you, so very humane, cannot want a monster…" His voice catches and comprehension floods her assaulted senses. His taunting is not hers alone. "Is it that you do not wish to be alone?" He questions her without curiosity.

She lifts a small hand and haltingly, brings it to cup the plane of his cheek. "Master." His face rises to hers, their noses mere inches apart. His crimson orbs hold such loathing and in return, she smiles. "No monster could feel such guilt."

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I guess this is becoming a series of oneshots of sorts. I apologise for the flavor, but it is reflective of the information I have gleaned about the manga. (first volume is due here in Aust in August) It would seem that the anime was never as in depth (as if they ever are) and I can't wait for the opportunity to explore the differences in characterization. 


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